stars timelapse

riky

Active member
I,m working on a documentary using timelapse with digital photo cameras.
How can I get a good photo of stars in the night, in terms of velocity and exposure? I use a canon 10D with an external intervalometer. I dont wont only a photo with the lines of the stars in the sky. I need lots of photos maked in an long interval time to make a video animation.

I can combine long exposures with interval time. I used very lon exposures, a minute and more, but the sky becomes red and with lot of luminosity.

In other shots, I proved with 30 seconds and iris open, with better results.

Some suggestions?

Thanks

Luis García
Tenerife
 
A really big flash!
OK seriously, your best option is to shoot with a really fast lens at a few second exposure (anything longer will cause the star radial trail effect) and a high ISO. Try to shoot in an area were ambient light is very minimal so that the sky doesn't get lit up more than the stars. Also shoot on a clear night. You can get an adapter to hook your camera up to a telescope if you don't mind shoot a few stars and not the whole sky.
 
Thanks for your reply, and for your good humor sense
I,m going to do what you say, but I want to try with long exposures too, cause I like the trail effect in the animation.

I have to shot in places ideals for the astronomic observation, in Tenerife and La Palma, two islands of Canary islands. I hope the atmosferic contamination will not be a problem.

I will post the results here
Thanks
 
The 24L is supposed to be the best lens for this type of work, the f/1.4 aperture is unique among UWAs. Not sure if 24mm on a cropsensor will be wide enough though. Also, rather hefty pricetag, but maybe you can rent?
 
I have a sigma 10-20mm 1:4-5:6 on a Canon 10D. I want to shot the stars with references of the astronomic observatory. It,s a good idea to use a graduated ND filter to mask the buildings in the bottom of the image?

Thanks
 
Luis, I basically shoot nothing but star timelapses. There is a whole discussion forum dedicated to this subject:

timescapes.org

Basically, with a Canon, you get a TC80-N3 intervalometer, then shoot 30-second+ exposures with about 5 second intervals.

Sign up at timescapes and we can give you more details.
 
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